Author Archives: Josh

A morning in the valley of Mo’ara

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It’s so empty, it’s really nice to look at the queue and feel like you’re on a hike through the valley to ride your Ikran!

Turned out blurrier than I hoped. Cool cave paintings in this room though.

Because we normally do fast pass rather than wait for 4 hours in the standby line, we haven’t actually seen parts of the queue! There are some really cool rooms in the standby line!

A still doesn’t do this justice. I’m not sure if it was real ferro fluid or a simulation, but it was really cool.
Through the cave and off to ride our banshees!
I seem to have picked up a hitchhiker.
It keeps following me. I think it wants to eat me.

Next up, an African Safari, and then an encounter with a yeti.

Survived the backside of water…

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We made it off the jungle cruise, it was harrowing and “pun”-ishing, but we made it back!

So we immediately went to skippers cantina for dinner and additional puns.

Matt knew what I was doing.
The SEA lounge room. It’s behind a secret bookcase, very exclusive. Julian had to ask nicely. 😂
Corn pancakes and pulled pork. Very very tasty.

After dinner Emily needed a few more yo’s and ho’s, so we did pirates again.

Directly after this we were shelled into dampness my the shore artillery batteries.
The Red Lady animatronics is pretty great. Much pirate chatter in this scene.
I don’t know why they don’t use the Rome Burning smell here.
The castle looked nice. Freshly painted. Very blue.

After pirates we had some dole whip, and rode seven dwarves mine train again, because I’m a nerd for both pineapple and roller coasters, even cute baby ones. (and this one is pretty fun, even if it’s a baby one.)

After that Park was closing so it was time to head out. We made a stop in the Tangled bathrooms on the way, widely believed to be the best bathrooms in magic Kingdom. Their art supports this.

Poor shorty.
Matt lol’d mightily at “daily serf report”
Maximus!
Tangled deserves more than a bathroom. But it’s got that, and a tower. Maybe someday.
Aladdin bus home? Yes please!

After a short break back at the room, Bevin has her pins organized and we’re headed over to Disney Springs for ice cream!

20,563 steps today, 9.94 miles.

Tomorrow, animal kingdom!

Newly colored castle

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Castle in the distance.
The castle looms!
The world famous back-side of castle!

I like the new colors a lot more in person than I did in photos. I don’t know if these photos will convey it. It’s quite nice though.

Bevin lol’d

So far the longest wait time in the park, by a LARGE margin, is Starbucks.

Wandering day

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Today is a day of wandering between resorts, looking at things and eating food.

For your consideration: breakfast at the Polynesian!

Macadamia nut pancakes with pineapple.
Tonga tooaaaaaaaast!

The toast is a much talked about dish, it had to be tried.

My tummy hurts.

Anyway! Wandering the Polynesian! Castle in the background.

New castle

More Epcot

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Next up, Norway.

Still Norway on the inside!
Elsa let’s it go. Let’s us go actually. Right off the waterfall.

I’ve revised my opinion. It’s a pretty well done re-skin of the old Norway. They could do some things a little cooler, but only one scene actually disappoints me.

At least they still have some troll remnants.
This is the”parade” now.
Not that there’s any traffic TO disrupt, but such short parades are nice and easy to deal with.
I like the view from the DVC lounge on top of Imagination.
Relaxing and rehydrating in the lounge.
It may be nemo’s undersea adventure now, but seabase alpha lives on in some small way.

We managed to dodge a pretty big thunderstorm this afternoon. Fortunately it was easy to find cover. It is AMAZING how empty it is. There are so few people here. On top of that everyone is being really good about masks and spacing. Julian and I before the trip looking at videos and such decided that we’d feel safer here than in our local grocery stores, and that has TOTALLY been true, at least at Disney. Universal was a little more trouble outside the park, we had to actively dodge people sometimes. So such issues at Disney. Snug as a bug in a rug!